A casket comprises a large shell to which is pivoted a cap or lid. Caskets are generally expensive to ship due to the large volume of wasted space which is the interior of the casket.
So-called ready-to-assemble caskets have been proposed in order to provide more economical shipping of caskets. A ready-to-assemble ("RA") casket is generally shipped in a knocked-down kit configuration, that is, is shipped as a kit of disassembled casket components, for example a pair of shell side walls, a pair of shell end walls, a shell bottom wall, and a cap. The disassembled casket components may be shipped in a shipping container which is substantially smaller than a container for containing an assembled casket. Thus, for a given volume, a greater number of caskets may be shipped in RA form than in preassembled form thereby producing a substantial shipping cost savings.
One criticism in the shipping of RA caskets, and many other products for that matter, is the amount of waste generated at the shipping destination point of the caskets. The RA casket is removed from its shipping container, is assembled and readied for sale. The shipping containers, normally fabricated of corrugated board otherwise known as cardboard, must either be disposed of or transported to a recycling station for recycling. The cost of this discarded and, prior to the present invention, unusable, shipping container traditionally is reflected in the cost of the end product--the casket--thus increasing the casket's cost.
In addition to being utilized in the construction of shipping cartons cardboard has also been employed in the construction of combustible caskets used in the cremation industry or so-called crematable caskets. Cardboard has the advantage of being much less expensive than wood but suffers however from the drawbacks that it is not as aesthetically pleasing visually as are caskets fabricated from wood or other materials such as hardboard and also cardboard is not as structurally stiff as some of these other materials used for fabricating crematable caskets and thus has a lesser load carrying or bearing capacity. Cardboard can though be successfully employed in crematable caskets for components which do not carry great loads and which also are not ordinarily visible to an observer of the casket due to their being covered by the decorative fabric interior of the casket or otherwise to their placement within the casket.
It is therefore one objective of the present invention to reduce shipping container waste at the point of destination of RA caskets.
It is another objective of the present invention to reduce the need to transport discarded shipping containers in which RA caskets have been shipped to a recycling station for recycling.
It is yet another objective of the present invention to reduce the shipping costs associated with shipping caskets in general and RA caskets in particular.
It is still another objective of the present invention to utilize cardboard as a material with which to fabricate at least some components of a crematable casket, which components are not required to carry great loads and are not readily visible to an observer.